A business system is composed of many resources including a number of apparatuses, such as servers, storages, and network equipment; and programs, such as operating systems (OS), middleware, and applications installed on the apparatuses. In a situation where a plurality of such business systems are in operation, a data center carries out operational work, such as monitoring and maintenance, of the business systems.
In recent years, Runbook Automation (RBA) has attracted attention as a technology for advancing operations automation by expressing operational work of business systems in workflows. RBA is expected to have various effects including reduction in operation load with simple tasks, reduction of human errors, and reduction in operational costs.
As for technology related to workflows, there is provided, for example, a workflow system for acquiring, from connected devices, information of valid combinations of a plurality of functions and allowing a user to edit a workflow based on the information.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2010-009243
Workflow designers design individual workflows trying not to include unnecessary tasks. However, it is not easy for the designers to design each workflow by considering relationships of tasks among a plurality of workflows. Therefore, in a situation where a plurality of workflows are executed, omissible and unnecessary tasks may be executed. The execution of unnecessary tasks leads to problems such as a prolonged execution time for the entire process and an increase in the network load.